Electronics

The three Japanese scientists who invented the first efficient blue LEDs in the mid 1990s have received the 2014 Nobel Prize for Physics. The invention of efficient blue LEDs was a foundational step in the creation of the bright white LED lights being produced by the likes of Cree and Philips, which are driving the most significant transformation in lighting technology since the invention of the incandescent bulb.

Early in 2013, Microsoft showed off IllumiRoom, its concept peripheral that took what was displayed on your television and extended it to the surrounding room. We haven’t heard much from IlllumiRoom in a while, but now Microsoft is back with the newest version of technology, RoomAlive.

Later this week at the Paris Auto Show, CEO of Tesla Elon Musk will ‘unveil the D.’ Assuming this isn’t just a thinly veiled reference to part of Musk’s anatomy, what might he be showing off on October 9? Does the ‘D’ allude to a Diesel-electric plug-in hybrid? Or perhaps it’s a version of the Model S with some semi-self-Driving tweaks? Or is it as simple/boring as a Dual-motor — all-wheel drive — version of the Model S? There’s even a possibility that the D is some kind of brand-new car entirely, to accompany the Model S, X, and 3.

2014’s Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser, and Edvard Moser for their discovery of the brain’s ‘inner GPS’ system. The prize revolves around their discovery of place cells and grid cells in the brain that appear to create a cognitive map of every room or space that you’ve ever explored. As you move around a room or space, a very specific place cell fires — and when you visit the same place again in the future, the same place cell fires every time.

Back in July, we wrote about a massive security hole — BadUSB — that potentially gave hackers the ability to hijack or subvert billions of USB devices, from keyboards to printers to thumb drives. At the time, due to the severity of the issue, the researchers who discovered the flaw didn’t publish their BadUSB exploit code. Now, however, two other hackers have worked out how to exploit BadUSB — and they’ve published their code on Github for all to see.

Virtual reality is so much more than visuals, but most of what we’re used to seeing is little more than head-tracking and 3D imagery in a head-mounted display. For real immersion, VR is going to need to take advantage of the other senses as well. Touch and smell are just as important as sight and sound, but those are much harder problems to solve. Thankfully, a company by the name of Dexta Robotics is developing a peripheral to simulate the sensation of touch in a virtual world.

It’s a solar cell! No… it’s a rechargeable lithium-air battery! No… wait… it’s both: It’s the world’s first all-in-one solar battery! This is significant, because one of the biggest problems with wide-scale solar power deployment is that you also need huge banks of batteries to store electricity. An integrated solution is both cheaper and more efficient — about 25% cheaper and 20% more efficient, according to the researchers.

Defense Distributed, the organization that created the 3D printed Liberator pistol, is back with a new way to exploit legal loopholes. The $1200 Ghost Gunner can built a crucial and highly regulated component of the AR-15 assault rifle.

Before she was ousted from office by a military coup in May, Thailand’s prime minister pushed an interesting initiative through government: To use robots to banish the world of bad Thai food. Now, the first stage of the prime minister’s program is finally here: A robot that tastes your Thai food, and then compares its taste and smell against pre-programmed “standard” definitions of popular Thai dishes such as tom yum soup or green curry.

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